


a picture paints a thousand words

by kagewho



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, College, F/M, Fluff, Haikyuu - Freeform, Kuroo/Reader - Freeform, Mild Smut, Multi, Other, Reader-Insert, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kuroo is not an fboy, kuroo the khemist, kuroo x reader - Freeform, well he kinda is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28571421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagewho/pseuds/kagewho
Summary: ‘stop being mean to me or i swear to god i’m gonna fall in love with you.’(kuroo x reader) (soulmate au)
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Reader, Kuroo x reader, Kuroo/Reader, kuroo tetsurou x reader
Kudos: 19





	1. thicker than water

**Author's Note:**

> From the age of 18, every mark you make on your body appears verbatim on your soulmate.

'Oh my gosh, you came!' You quickly set your glass down on the low table beside you and encircled the taller, blonde girl in a tight hug, during which she practically lifted you off the ground. 

'Of course I came you idiot!' The girl exclaimed, ruffling the hair on-top of your head after she released you from her cobra-like embrace. While you didn't exactly love this gesture when your hair was freshly done like it was now, it still came as a great comfort to you. Saeko had always been a big sister and would protect you with her life, which she has proven on several more-than-unfortunate situations, so you would easily allow her a pass at messing up your hair with an affectionate head pat. 'You think I'd miss your first art show!']

'It's not my art show,' You explained to her yet again with a slight giggle and a shake of your head, 'I told you, it's the university's art show, I literally only have two pieces in it!'

'Well,' Saeko began, dropping her right arm around your shoulder, pressing her face closer to yours and continuing in a voice that was far too loud considering they were surrounded by other people who's art was also on display, 'Your paintings are gonna steal the show! So they should just name this entire gallery after you'

'This is literally the cafeteria,' you corrected her but you were already laughing wholeheartedly along with your friend.

Admittedly, you had been very nervous before she got here, just lurking around, not wanting to stand to close to your paintings in case it looked like you were waiting for compliments but wanting to stand close enough that you could hear what people were saying about it. After all, this was your first time being displayed at any type of gallery in university, well actually the first time having your work displayed anywhere -bar your mother's fridge- ever. You were only in the first year of your course and any art had been kept strictly as a hobby during your time in high school thanks to your parents and the pedestal they placed academic achievement on.

'Show me your work then!' Saeko whirled around, detaching herself from you and scanning all the paintings and drawings tacked onto the flimsy walls of white, polystyrene-looking material, 'Which one is it?'

'It's just over hereeee,' You felt your anxiety peak as you lead her to your work, even though she is easily your closest friend and you know that your work is good, or at least you had been tirelessly trying to convince yourself it was good since it had taken you about ten hours to complete (not including all of the tweaks you kept doing up until minutes before it went up on display), it was still extremely nerve-wracking, The worst part; you knew you'd be able to tell immediately if she thought it was bad, one of the few downsides of Saeko was she wore her emotions openly plastered across her face, all of the time. Nevertheless, you travelled the short distance to your pieces with her in tow and then indicated which ones were yours with a twirl of you wrist and dramatic flourish of your hand. 

'This is amazing!' Saeko exclaimed, her voice getting louder with every word until she said your name at a complete shout. 'You drew this?!'

She quickly swivelled on her heel so she was facing you, you scanned her face for any tell-tale sign of an attempt to protect your feelings. But you just saw her eyes wide with disbelief and pride as well as her jaw actually hanging low. Seeing this caused a large, toothy grin to spread across your face, you reached out and tapped the bottom of Saeko's chin.

'Close that or you'll start catching flies,' You joked with a melodic giggle. She shut her mouth and dealt you a swift jab with her elbow but soon joined you in laughing. 

Your face dropped soon thereafter, though. And you held eye contact with Saeko to signal that you wanted a serious answer for the question you were about to ask. She sensed the change in you mood and stopped her laughter to meet your gaze with a serious look of her own. 

'Is it actually terrible?' You stared at her with baited breath and increasing anxiety as it seem to be taking her a long time to ready her answer, her face unchanging for while. After a moment though, the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. You watched as she obviously tried to regain her composure.. and promptly burst out laughing and shouted your name yet again in disbelief.

'You're so funny.' Saeko grabbed your shoulder for support as booming laughter shook her whole body, almost knocking you both over.

'I'm not joking,' You asserted, pulling your shoulder suddenly out of her reach so that she teetered where she stood, barely keeping her balance.

'You need to have more faith in yourself! Your work is fucking amazing!' 

You glanced around to see if your professor was anywhere around to have heard Saeko's colourful language before responding to her,

'Promise with cherry on top?' It may have sounded stupid to any passer-by, but this phrase was one you made back when you were much younger and lived next door to one another. Neither of you would ever breach the sanctity of a cherry on top promise no matter what happened.

At this phrase Saeko stopped laughing, her expression softened to one of caring and concern as she met her line of sight to yours once again. You know she worried when you got like this, showcasing how little faith you had in your own work even if everyone in the world told you it would rival the Sistine Chapel. When you stared talking so negatively about your work, her big sister instincts really kicked in and she started to dote on you as if you were some wounded little kid. You didn't mind it too much, it showed she cared. But, most of the time, you would trust her word and you would always trust cherry on top promise.

'I promise with a cherry on top,' she stated with a nod of affirmation, 'Now, I'm gonna get us both a drink and hopefully you'll loosen up a bit!'

Saeko gave you a brief but tight hug of reassurance before wandering off in search of the food and drinks table with an excited glint in her eye. 

'Your friend's right, you know?' A deep and warm but unfamiliar voice sounded up from behind you, 'Your work is pretty good.'

You pivoted, turning to face the perpetrator of such a back handed compliment but upon completing your 180 you realised you were staring at the chest of whoever has spoken so you slowly inclined your neck upwards, past the broad shoulders clad in a deep crimson shirt open over a plain black t-shirt and up to the face of the guy who had vaguely insulted you.

'Pretty goood?' You unintentionally drew out the last word as your eyes scanned the face- the incredibly attractive face- of the tall boy in front of you. He was just over six feet tall with sleek, black hair most of which curiously stood straight up on his head except for the small section that flopped over his right eye. His iris' were warm, toffee-coloured pools that seemed to sparkle even in the fluorescents of the school cafeteria. The left corner of his mouth lifted in a breath-taking but smarmy smirk as you attempted to recover from the initial surprise of seeing him.

'Yeah, pretty,' he took a long pause as he looked from the drawing you made to you, slowly dragging his gaze from your eyes, to your lips and to what seemed like each individual part of your face, and eventually back to your eyes, 'and good.'

Despite yourself, your lips spread into a smile and you laughed quietly. Immediately, you felt like a little school girl and tried to quell your smile. But even you had to admit it was a cute attempt at being smooth, especially since your piece was a self-portrait. To say you were reluctant to do it was a severe understatement but it was, unfortunately, required in the first semester of your course.

'Thank you,' You nodded your head slightly at him and turned some of the way back around, assuming the conversation was over. It, apparently, was not.

'You're more than welcome,' You weren't even looking at him but you could still hear the smile on his face, it almost made you want to turn back around to see it for a moment. Almost. He continued talking. 'And what's your name?'

After this question, you did turn your head to look at him again. You were right, he did have another sickeningly sweet grin plastered across his face. You contemplated it for a moment but told him your name and, in the interest of politeness, you asked his as well as asking for his major.

'My name's Kuroo and I'm majoring in biochem,' At this you raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He noticed it- though it only lasted a second- and chuckled. The sound of his laugh was enough to invoke a momentary pause on your heart beat but you ignored it and tried to stay tuned in to whatever he was saying. 'I know, with all the chemistry I'm creating here it can't be a surprise.'

'Ohh,' You scoffed slightly following it up with another giggle - except you didn't try to hold this one back- and shook your head at him, 'You nerd.'

'Hey,' Kuroo placed his hand on where his heart would be, feigning hurt and down turning his lips into a frown, 'I'm hurt.'

You continued to laugh and watched as his expression turned from fake sadness into another smile but warmer this time at the sight of the joy on your face, absentmindedly placing a hand on his arm. He was so warm, you could feel the heat radiating off him despite it being freezing in the cafeteria. Your hands lingered as you felt his muscle even while his arm was relaxed.

You heard the familiar voice of Saeko shouting your name from down the isle of artwork and swivelled on the spot, turning away from the handsome stranger. She was wondering around, tiptoeing in a futile attempt to peak over people's heads in search of you. You stuck your hand up and waved, hoping she would see it but she seemed to be having a bit of trouble locating you still. As you moved your hand down, about to cup both over your mouth and call out to her, Kuroo spoke again.

'I guess I'll see you around,' He whispered, having moved close to your ear. Not uncomfortably close but close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath on the nape of your neck. A warm tingle radiated down your back and you attempted to quickly shake it off as you heard his footsteps recede away from where you were now stood alone, trying to signal to your friend where you were as you tried to regain the the air he seemed to have stolen from your lungs and taken with him as he walked away.


	2. every realist is a pessimist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a note, the set up at the university is going to be like a british one so it's like they're essentially sharing an apartment but all get separate rooms, which means its co-ed!

Resting your chin on your open palm and propping yourself up by sliding your elbow onto your desk, you scanned over the desktop that illuminate your laptop screen. you know you had a lot of work to do, none of it on your computer, but you were trying your absolute hardest to procrastinate your day away while still feeling at least a little productive. You drummed your fingers by the side of the trackpad, doing your best to think of a way to not do your work. Usually, you didn't actively try to avoid work this much but your next topic to focus on was the human body. Which meant you would have to go into class and stare at someone' mostly naked body for about three hours, and this possibility did not excite you in the least. It wasn't that it made you embarrassed or that it made you nervous but apparently, the school normally allows other students to volunteer and they often leap at the chance since it pays about twenty dollars an hour so you were concerned about the prospect of imagining one of your classmates naked every single time you looked at them after that. You were about ready to spiral into imagining all the possible terribly awkward eventualities that could arise from you seeing someone you know naked but luckily you were saved by the ping of an email filtering into your inbox. You dragged your mouse slowly across the screen, expecting another useless notification from the university about a new club or a deadline that doesn't apply to you. 

When you opened up the email application, however, you realised it was from your professor so you decided to actually read it rather than let it pile up with the thousands of accumulated unopened emails that sat in your inbox. You selected the email and scanned your eyes over the text. Blah blah something about the gallery show the other night blah blah something about being impressed with your work blah blah something about someone buying one of your pieces. You had reached the bottom of the screen before you manage to process the words you had just read. With wide eyes, you went back to the start of the email and read it again; much, much slower this time, making sure you didn't skip any words or misunderstand anything. You read it over and over, double checking whether it had been sent to the right person but your professor had addressed it to you, there was no mistake. Yet, you still didn't believe it.

You were still reading and rereading and rerereading the email when you heard the sound of a light tap on the door and snapped your head up in surprise a you were completely enthralled in the email,

'It's me!' You heard a familiar voice announce from the other side of the door.

'You can come in it's open,' You replied, reverting your focus back to the screen of your laptop and analysing the essay once again. 

You heard the door open and the sound of footsteps walking over to your bed, followed by the creak of springs accompanied by a loud sigh as you roommate nonchalantly plopped themselves onto your bed. 

'Wowwww,' Your roommate tutted at you loudly. When you didn't reply or show any interest in what they were saying, they repeated themselves, louder and more dramatically than before.

'I saiiiid, woooooow,' This time they punctuated their sentence with a long sigh. You rolled your eyes but secretly smiled at the performance.

'What's wrong, dear?' You swivelled in your chair so you could see your roommate. He was, unsurprisingly, sprawled out across your bed with the back of his hand to his forehead as if he was some fair maiden in a period drama who had just fainted out of shock.

'Wellll, I just think it's courteous to meet your esteemed guests at the door,' He sighed liltingly again and you giggled lightly.

'Oh I'm sorry? Was there someone else at the door with you?' You asked him, throwing a searching glance at your door that he had not fully closed behind him when he entered.

He feigned a gasp in response, the hand fluttering from his head down to his chest where he laid it flat against himself as if he had actually been shot in the heart.

'You're so meannnn,' He pouted for a second but he couldn't hold it for long before he began laughing with you.

Oikawa was one of five other people you shared this apartment with, not including yourself, and though he had begun as the person you liked the least he easily made his way up the rankings to become one of your favourite people you'd met since you started university. You had thought he was far, far too dramatic for your tastes but it didn't take you long to realise it was a lot of fun to just play along with him because he was almost never being serious. You and him had become like the surrogate parents to a lot of the people in your apartment as well as other ones, you joked and bickered like an old married couple but you were both very reliable when it came down to it so a lot of people came to both of you for help. And it helped a lot that he always go so excited for you no matter what, he was the opposite of you in that sense, ever the optimist which was a welcome change from the constant doubt you viewed almost every situation with. You got excited to tell him your news just thinking of his reaction.

'Oikawa, guess what?' You smiled widely at him, trying to contain the emotion seeping into your voice and onto your face. He immediately threw himself up into a sitting position and slid along the edge of the bed so he was face to face with you where you were sat on your desk chair. His face looked expectant but you could see the glint of excitement already in his eye.

'What?' He had barely finished his sentence to allow you to speak before he continued, ' Well, come onnnn! The suspense is killing me!'

'Someone bought one of my drawings, from the gallery the other day!' You practically squealed with excitement, finally starting to believe that the email hadn't been a mistake. He shouted your name so loudly that all of your roommates probably heard it.

'Well doneeee!!!' He cheered, wrapping his arms around your torso and lifting you up out of your chair to give you a hug so tight he practically squeezed all of the air out of your lung. 'Oh my gosh! We need to go out and celebrate.'

'Oh, I don't know about that,' You started shaking your head at him, that seemed a bit excessive

'Well, you don't need to know, cuz I'm telling you,' He stated with a decisive nod, removing his arms from where they were wrapped around your torso to his hip. You opened your mouth to argue but he wagged a finger in your face, 'No. No arguing, missy. This is happening.'

You just sighed and nodded, when he got like this there was really no chance of you changing his mind. He would happily dress you and carry you out of the apartment himself if it came down to it. It was probably a good idea anyways, you hadn't been in a while thanks to you spending hours cooped up in your room working on the pieces you submitted for the gallery show. You had barely seen the sun in the last week or so if you were completely honest and while you weren't one for partying or anything, you wouldn't turn your nose up at one. Though, admittedly, you much preferred to go on little adventures or try out new things.

'Who bought it?' Oikawa's voice drew you out of your thoughts.

'I don't actually know,' You shrugged at him, it hadn't said in the email and you had just assumed that it was kept anonymous or that it was someone's rich parents that you didn't know. 

'Don't you wanna know who's now gonna have your face on their wall?' You hadn't even thought about that, the thought sent a light shiver down your spine. God knows who could be doing very creepy things around and too your face right now.

'Now I do.' You complained, 'But it must be anonymous so there's no way of me knowing.'

As you finished your sentence, a cunning smile spread across Oikawa's face. 

'I'll find out for you!' And you had no doubt that he would, he knew a scary amount of people from all around the campus and when he wanted a piece of information he was like a dog with a bone. He figured information out that you couldn't even be sure a CIA agent would be able to obtain. It terrified you a little. But he was on your side, so it wasn't too daunting.

'Thank youuu,' You gave him another quick hug. 

'No problem my love,' He headed for the door, 'Now. I will see you tomorrow night for our celebration and it is non-negotiable. Have a good night!'

'You too,' You followed after him because you could be certain that he wouldn't close the door on his way out either. 

After shutting the door, you flopped onto your bed. It wasn't all that late but you were feeling tired. It couldn't be the worst thing in the world to just sneak a little nap in before you actually tried to start some work.

***

You awoke, startled, to the sound of your alarm clock blaring from the floor beside your bed. You rubbed your eyes groggily, slowly sitting up in your bed. It took you a moment to rub the tiredness out of your eyes but when you did, you gradually noticed that you were laying on top of your covers; still wearing all of your clothes. It was, in fact, the next morning and you had failed to get up from your 'little nap' and do any work, instead you slept through the whole night and you had still somehow woke up tired. You cursed aloud and swung your legs out of your bed, grabbing your shower stuff and heading straight for the bathroom to wash the haze of sleep out of your head and the stink of yesterdays clothes off your body. 

Your shower was a brisk one as you realised you could very easily be late to class if you went too slowly. You rushed out of your room, hoping on one foot as you tried to shove your foot into your shoe. You almost went barrelling onto the floor but you stuck your arm out to use the wall for support. Only your hand didn't connect with the wall, you felt your hand brush the wood of someone's door as it opened and swung out of reach. You landed on your back on the floor with a thump. 

You looked up to see one of your roommates stood above you with a wide-eyed concerned look. They offered out a hand to help you up and you accepted, as they lifted you up you apologised profusely,

'I'm so sorry, Kiyoko,' You stood up straight and brushed yourself off, still trying to worm your foot into you half-on shoe.

'It's no problem,' She replied with a small but sweet smile, 'You should be more careful.'

'Yeah, sorry, I'm in a rush.' You laughed, a little embarrassed at your display now that you had gotten over the initial shock, 'Thank you, though.'

'You're welcome,' She replied.

You nodded your head at her with a smile as you turned and headed in the direction you were hurrying before you fell. You reached the door that lead to the corridor outside your apartment and shouted back,

'Have a good day everyone!' Before swinging the door open and speeding down the stairs of your apartment building, hoping that you weren't running too late but too scared to check your phone for fear of wither tripping over your own feet or it just slowing you down.

Minutes later, you barrelled into your class. People were still chatting amongst themselves and you couldn't see the professor anywhere yet. Your eyes scanned the room looking for a place to sit, the room had been rearranged for todays lesson. Instead of easels dotted around the spacious room, quite far apart from each other as they usually were; they were arranged in a small semi circle around an ornate chaise lounge that had a thick, heavily patterned blanket draped over it. Of course, the only available space was right in front of said chaise lounge, and it was incredibly close, too. The day you were dreading had come, you had to draw one of your fellow students naked. You took a deep breath to steady your nerves as you watched the professor enter the room.

She talked for a little while; recapping the last lesson, congratulating you and a couple other students on your sold artwork and then she began to explain what was going to happen for the next three or so hours. At this point, you started to pay closer attention to what she was saying. She spoke about how you'd have a five minute break every half an hour and you were free to use and medium that you wanted. Eventually, the time came for her to introduce the person who would be the subject. The room went quiet bar a few giggles and she reminded everyone that they needed to try and be mature. You were not laughing, you were nervous. You were stone-faced when she opened the door and the subject walked into the room, wrapped in a fluffy white robe with a confident smirk on his face.


	3. beauty is in the eye of the beholder

No way. No fucking way. You gawked, wide-eyed as you watched the volunteer stalk across from the door way to the chaise longue that sat in the centre of the semi circle of easels. Your professor had started speaking again, but you were paying no attention to the words that came out of her mouth as your gaze remained locked on the person in the white robe. What were the chances? You genuinely wanted to know how the one in a million occurrence that was taking place in front of your face, was happening to you right now. Did you really just have the shittest luck on Earth or did the universe decided to fuck you over in particular? Probably the latter, you decided, finally blinking for the first time in a solid minute. 

The black-haired man plopped down onto his throne-like seat, reclining back with a smile draped over his lips. In direct contrast to his completely relaxed stance, your shoulders had tensed completely and you were hunched over in your seat, now staring at the pencil in your hand after you realised you looked crazy staring at the man had just entered. From anyone else's perspective, you probably looked like you were about to hurl or something. The only saving grace, at the moment, was that he hadn't noticed you yet. You tried your best to take a deep breath, unclenching your jaw and relaxing into your seat a little. You were probably being a bit dramatic, he probably didn't remember you and you would probably never have to see him again. So you needn't worry about bumping into him and trying to have a conversation while a picture of his naked body danced through your mind. You took another deep breath, almost completely relaxed now, yeah, he probably didn't even remember you. You spoke to him literally one single time. You were stressing over nothing.

You glanced up from the pencil you were staring at, eyes scanning the front of the class to find where your professor had wandered too as she often walked about as she talked. Try as you might have to avoid the man sat on the chaise longue, your eyes lingered on him for a moment still and you realised he was looking directly back at you. His smile contorted into a mischievous smirk as he winked at you. Your eyes had never moved faster, they darted down to look at the ground as you felt a swell of warmth rush to your cheeks. You very nearly spun around to see if it was you that he had actually winked at but you didn't wish to draw a lot of attention, you were meant to be listening to your teacher and you were sat in the front row. A second past and you heard a quiet, low chuckle from the tall stranger in the rode. Despite yourself, your head whipped straight back up. He was looking at you still, evidentially he found your reaction amusing. You squinted your eyes at him and furrowed your eyebrow in a pretty good attempt at a death stare. His smile dropped a little and you were quietly pleased with yourself, you weren't some bashful maiden who didn't know how to handle interactions with boys. His entrance to your class had just caught you off guard and his wink hadn't helped but you didn't intend for him to make you blush and lower your gaze again.

You turned your attention back to the professor again, she wasn't really saying anything you didn't already know and you were, for once, thankful for her tendency to ramble. She spoke a little bit about technique and said not to worry too much about making mistakes because now was a time to practise anatomy, not to make any grand masterpieces. Tapping your pencil on the leg of your easel, you realised you were actually eager to start drawing, you rarely studied anatomy further down than the waist as you had just always leaned towards portraiture, and this was possibly the best type of practise you could get. The professor made her way over to the chaise longue and gestured towards Kuroo,

'Mr Tetsuro has graciously volunteered to be your subject today,' She nodded at him, 'If you would kindly disrobe for us please.'

Kuroo nodded in compliance, moving to untie the thick, fluffy belt that kept his robe closed.

'Wait,' Kuroo paused and raised an eyebrow at your professor, 'You did keep your underwear on, correct?'

Kuroo's expression turned slightly sheepish and he scratched the back of his head as he spoke,

'No, was I meant to?' This earned a slight snicker from the class, you would've joined in if you hadn't had the same train of thought that he did.

'I commend your confidence,' Your professor sighed and pinched between her eyebrows in an act of dramatic disappointment, 'But, yes, you were meant to.'

'I'll run and get them,' He beamed at her as he turned to head out of the room, 'Won't be a sec.'

He was gone in a flash, not bothering to wait for an answer from the professor who just accompanied another sigh with the rolling of her eyes. You snickered to yourself now, wondering if he had realised that his robe was mostly undone, if it wasn't for you averting your eyes quickly, you would've seen a lot more than you wanted to. Although you weren't sure what to think about him yet, you had to admit you were quite impressed with his boldness, you would never have had the nerve to strip naked in front of a bunch of strangers, at least not unless you were black-out drunk. But he seemed entirely sober and completely confident. You continued to drum you pencil impatiently as you waited. You wondered how easy he would be to draw, trying to picture what his body looked like under that thick robe he was wearing. You guessed he'd probably be quite slender, he was tall but he didn't seem too built, although, admittedly you had only seen him one other time and that wasn't for long enough to truly estimate his body type. Your knee began to bounce in time with your pencil hitting the wooden leg of the easel. You were itching to get started now, and you normally stood when you drew or painted so you legs were aching to be used.

Despite your impatience, it wasn't long before Kuroo waltzed back into the classroom, robe left wide open, his black Calvin Klein boxers clearly on show, as he stepped back in. You tried to keep you eyes up on his face as he took a seat on the ornate chaise longue, even though you knew you were about to spend the next few hours pouring over every inch of his body.

'Sorry, about that, Miss,' Kuroo directed his apology at the professor with a slight bow of his head. Well, at least he's respectful, you thought. 'Where do you want me?'

'It's not a problem,' Your professor assured him before gesturing up and down the chaise longue, 'Just spread out on there, they need to see as much of you as possible. And you guys can start when you're ready,'

He nodded his head once and moved into position. Spreading his long legs out on the rest of the cushion, her turned onto his right side so his body was facing the class, he used his right elbow to prop himself up and let his left arm to rest lazily on his side. He seemed almost suspiciously good at posing but as your gaze drifted over his body, you thought it would be unsurprising if he had done some modelling in the past. To put it shortly, he was beautiful. You had been wrong about him being slender, he was toned, yes, but there was obvious, strong, thick ropes of muscle that lay just under his tan skin. Your eyes moved from his arms across his wide chest to his lightly defined six pack and you did your best to skip your eyes over his underwear area but you couldn't help but be curious, there wasn't much to see there though, unfortunately, as the black fabric hid any shape definition. You moved your eyes past, trying to rid your brain of any lewd thoughts, inspecting his thick thighs and then his strong calves. You were now even more desperate to get started. 

Shoving your chair back a little, you stood up and leaned back slightly, glancing between Kuroo and your blank canvas. You tapped your pencil on your chin for a moment, considering the best approach to the piece, you mind began to flood with ideas and any hint of embarrassment over knowing Kuroo had completely slipped from you mind. You were in your element now, practically twitching with excitement at the prospect of having a beautiful finished piece. You mentally flicked through ideas, before landing on one that you loved and set to work straight away: sketching on your canvas with purpose as you did your best to capture Kuroo's likeness. You quickly became so entranced in your work that you didn't notice that Kuroo's gaze was fixed on you a majority of the time, watching you with an intense cat-like curiosity.

***

The hours whizzed by as you became completely absorbed in your work. Barely even taking a break to get anything to eat, you just grabbed something from the vending machine in the hallway and you only did that because your stomach was audibly rumbling since you had skipped breakfast. There was about half an hour left of the class by the time you managed to finish most of the piece. You decided to move onto 'refinements' which was meant to be just tweaking a few final little details but usually ended up in you painting over a whole portion of your work and starting it all over again because you no longer liked how it looked. You were working on his hair with a particularly intense amount of concentration, your face was awfully close to the canvas and your eyebrow was furrowed over your eyes. And you honestly still wondered why working on pieces for a prolonged amount of time made your head hurt, you were basically brushing your nose against the fabric while you still tried to focus your eyes. 

Your professor clapped her hands loudly, shocking you out of your pit of focus so abruptly that your head snapped up in surprise. You had to remind yourself that you were, in fact, still in a class full of people and not just hunched over scribbling furiously at the desk in your dorm. You brushed your hair from where it had fallen in front of your eyes, sliding your thin paintbrush behind your right ear. You had gotten into a habit doing that with a pencil, so much so that you often failed to account for the fact that a wet paintbrush would inevitably coat your face or the nape of your neck in paint somehow. 

As your teacher spoke, you tried to take in what she was saying while glaring between your painting and the tall boy that was still draped in the same position on the chaise longue. You took no steps to try and make it a little less obvious that you were looking at him. Any semblance of embarrassment over looking at his mostly naked body had petered away with your fiftieth glance at him and you were now more interested with your work being accurate than whatever he thought about you staring at him.

'Right,' Your professor declared, drawing your attention to her once again, 'We are all going to get up now and do critiques, you all have your post-it notes.'

Your concentration was completely severed now, you hated this part. You kept your eyes on your professor as she turned to speak to the subject,

'You're welcome to put your robe back on and have a look at them all now.' She handed him a stack of post-its and walked back over to her desk, sitting behind the computer and typing very slowly.

Begrudgingly, you stood up from your seat, grabbing your neon pink post-its and very worn down 2B pencil. The professor often got everyone to walk around the end of class and judge each other's pieces, scribbling down what was good or bad about the work before slapping a post-it note either onto the other person's canvas (if it was dry) or somewhere else on their easel. While you didn't particularly mind going around and critiquing other's art as you felt you weren't too harsh but you didn't overly sugar coat anything, you didn't really enjoy people looking at your art. You didn't mind the criticism most of the time, in fact you welcomed it usually, but every so often someone would pick on something to critique that you really loved about your work and you felt a compulsion to change it because you had trouble with looking at your work objectively.

You sighed a little before wandering away from your seat to someone else's work and peering at it before scrawling a compliment onto your paper and sticking it carefully to the easel. After going around a couple of people, you glanced back at your painting to see none other than Kuroo leaning forward a little to inspect your work. Unfortunately for you, another of your professors rules to this heinous activity was that you couldn't go back to see the critiques until everyone was done. So you just had to watch from across the room as Kuroo spent a suspiciously long time scrawling something onto his post-it not and slapping it directly onto -what you hoped was- a dry section of your canvas. You were still shooting him evil eyes when you heard someone say call your name in a voice a little too loud for the quiet classroom. You whirled around to see exactly who you expected right behind you.

'Bokuto!' A smile spread across your face as you spoke to match his ear-to-ear grin, 'How are you?'

'I'm good, good, gooood! How're you doin'?'

'I'm okay,' Your enthusiasm dropped off a little as you remembered who you had just been glaring at.

'What's up, bro?' He asked, raising both his eyebrows in wide-eyed sincerity.

'Do you know Kuroo?' You asked in a slightly hushed tone, hoping he wouldn't be able to hear you. The class seemed deathly silent all of a sudden.

'Know him? He's like my best bro, I've known him since like forever,' Bokuto explained to you with a smile, his voice much to loud for your liking.

You cursed internally, you wanted to complain about him but you could hardly bad-mouth him to his best friend. When you didn't speak again immediately, Bokuto's eyes darted back and forth between you and his friend as he attempted to piece two and two together. The question he asked you next implied he had come up with six.

'Do you want me to get his number for you? I'm sure he'd want me to give it to you,' Bokuto offered, trying to helpful but you shook your head vehemently in response.

'No, no, definitely not. I mean, I already know him,' Bokuto raised an eyebrow at you and you rushed to reconcile, 'Not like that. Just, ugh, I don't know how to explain it.'

You glanced back at your area to see that Kuroo was slowly making his way over to the pair of you. You swivelled back around to face your classmate.

'Not a word,' You jabbed a finger at him, attempting to look threatening though you know you didn't really need to. He wouldn't intentionally betray your trust.

Bokuto mimed zipping his lips and locking them, offering you a little wink before you turned and hightailed it to another person's workspace.

In total, it took about fifteen minutes for everyone to dish out their feedback on the fluorescent sticky notes. But you were done a while before that so you just meandered around the classroom taking a few extra looks at your classmate's work. Most people were no where near finished, in fact, your work probably looked the closest to being done out of everyone's. Of course, you would likely redo whole sections so realistically you were the furthest from being finished. Despite the work not being finished, it was easy for even someone with no knowledge of art to tell that there was a lot of people with real talent in your class.

You wandered back over to Bokuto's easel, knowing that would be the only place you would be safe from Kuroo since he was still by the beefy boy's side, engaged in a very loud conversation about something, you weren't quite sure what it was though as most of the words coming from Bokuto's mouth were just sound effects. Inspecting Bokuto's work, you couldn't help but notice that he seemed to have done some -perhaps accidental- modifications around the crotch area. You giggled to yourself quietly before noseying at the post-its that were dotted around his work. Most were praising him, a few pointed out some issues with proportion or colour but your eyes were drawn to a specific sticky note that was covered with doodles beside a few words. You took a closer look, it read 'Bo, we both know I have a bigger dick than you'. You rolled your eyes but couldn't help but smile. The doodles surrounding it included a cute cat accompanied by a wide-eyed owl as well as some other more obscene illustrations. 

'Okay, everyone get back to your seats and go over our feedback for the last ten minutes,' The professor declared from behind her desk.

You pulled yourself away from Bokuto's easel and made your way back across the room to your workspace, anxious to see what everyone had said about your work. Dropping into your seat, you grabbed the sticky not that was closest to you and read it. The words 'THIS IS AMAZING ^^' were scrawled across the small square paper in large letters, you recognised it immediately as Bokuto's writing, the whole thing being in capitals was a good indicator. Gradually you went through all the post-its, pulling them off the easel one by one and reading them. A majority of them were compliments which, logically, should have made you happy but you irrationally worried that people were only being so nice out of pity because your work was actually terrible. You sighed in exasperation at your own pessimism, sometimes you got so sick of thinking like that. 

There were only a couple of notes left on your easel. One said to work on the back ground, another to change the proportions of the hands; both were things you were already thinking of working on so you nodded needlessly in agreement as you read them. You reached up for the final post-it, smack dab in the middle of your canvas. Pulling it closer to your face, you recognised the handwriting for the sticky note that you had snooped at on Bokuto's work. You were half expecting a jokey comment or even a criticism but the words written in neat, small letters surprised you. It read, 'This puts the Mona Lisa to shame'. Your eyes widened and you reread it. A warmth rose in your cheeks, it was unexpectedly sweet. You wondered for a moment that maybe he was making a joke about him being more a masterpiece than the Mona Lisa rather than him expressing his admiration for your work. Subconsciously, you began gnawing at your bottom lip, trying to decipher what the note meant.

'Alright,' The voice of your teacher pulled your attention away from the writing, 'That's the end of class. Have a nice day everyone.'

People started to stand from their seats, grabbing their coats and bags before heading out of the classroom. However, you sat for a moment more, contemplating the writing on the note before deciding to just ask Kuroo about it directly, there was no way you would be able to tell the meaning by just staring at it. You usually left all your critiques on your easel alongside your equipment but you slipped this one into the pocket of your trousers before moving to gather your stuff and leave. The room was mostly empty by the time you got up to leave, your eyes scanned the room for the dark haired boy but you couldn't see him anywhere. Shit, you thought to yourself, he must have left already. You weren't sure when you would even see him next since you hadn't ever ran in to him before that gallery show. You kissed your teeth in annoyance before heading out the door, resolving to ask for advice from the best person you could think of.


End file.
